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"An area now mostly covered by wetlands and mudflats known as the Laguna Salada."
"How does this swamp fit into the picture?" asked Gunn.
Pitt's face glowed like a corporate executive officer about to announce a fat dividend to his stockholders. "The island where the Incas and the Chachapoyas buried Huascar's golden chain is no longer an island."
Then he sat down and sipped his brandy, allowing the revelation to penetrate and blossom.
As if responding to a drill sergeant's command, everyone leaned over the charts and studied the markings Pitt had made indicating the ancient shoreline. Shannon pointed to a small snake Pitt had drawn that coiled around a high rock outcropping halfway between the marsh and the foothills of the Las Tinajas Mountains.
"What does the snake signify?"
"A kind of `X marks the spot,' " answered Pitt.
Gunn closely examined the geological survey map. "You've designated a small mountain that, according to the contour elevations, tops out at slightly less than five hundred meters."
"Or about sixteen hundred feet," Giordino tallied.
"What is it called?" Loren wondered.
"Cerro el Capirote," Pitt answered. "Capirote in English means a tall, pointed ceremonial hat, or what we used to call a dunce cap."
"So you think this high pinnacle in the middle of nowhere is our treasure site?" Rodgers asked Pitt.
"If you study the maps closely, you'll find several other small mounts with sharp summits rising from the desert floor beside the swamp. Any one of them matches the general description. But I'm laying my money on Cerro el Capirote."
"What brings you to such an uncompromising decision?" Shannon queried.
"I put myself in the Incas' shoes, or sandals as it were, and selected the best spot to hide what was at the time the world's greatest treasure. If I were General Naymlap, I'd look for the most imposing island at the upper end of a sea as far away from the hated Spanish conquerors as I could find. Cerro el Capirote was about as far as he could go in the early fifteen hundreds, and its height makes it the most imposing."
The mood on the passenger deck of the ferry was definitely on the upswing. New hope had been injected into a project that had come within a hair of being written off as a failure. Pitt's unshakable confidence had infected everyone. Even Shannon was belting down the brandy and grinning like a Dodge City saloon hostess. It was as if all doubt had been thrown overboard. Suddenly, they all took finding the demon perched on the peak of Cerro el Capirote for granted.
If they had the slightest hint that Pitt had reservations, the party would have died a quick death. He felt secure in his conclusions, but he was too pragmatic not to harbor a few small doubts.
And then there was the dark side of the coin. He and Giordino had not mentioned that they had identified Doc Miller's killer as one of the other searchers. They both quietly realized that the Zolars or the Solpemachaco, whatever devious name they went under in this part of the world, were not aware that the treasure was in Pitt's sights.
Pitt began to picture Tupac Amaru in his mind, the cold, lifeless eyes, and he knew the hunt was about to become ugly and downright dirty.
They sailed the Alhambra north of Punta San Felipe and heaved to when her paddlewheels churned up a wake of red silt. A few kilometers ahead, the mouth of the Colorado River, wide and shallow, gaped on the horizon. Spread on either side of the murky, salt-laden water were barren mudflats, totally devoid of vegetation. Few planets in the universe could have looked as wretched and dead.
Pitt gazed at the grim landscape through the windscreen of the helicopter as he adjusted his safety harness. Shannon was strapped in the copilot's seat and Giordino and Rodgers sat in the rear passenger section of the cabin. He waved at Gunn, who replied with a V for victory sign, and Loren, who appropriately blew him a kiss.
His hands danced over the cyclic and collective pitch sticks as the rotors turned, gathering speed until the whole fuselage shuddered. And then the Alhambra was falling away, and he slipped the helicopter sideways across the water like a leaf blown by the wind. Once safely free of the ferry, he gently slipped the cyclic forward and the aircraft began a diagonal climb on a northerly course. At 500 meters (1640
feet) Pitt adjusted the controls and straightened out in level flight.
He flew above the drab waters of the upper Gulf for ten minutes before crossing into the marshlands of the Laguna Salada. A vast section of the flats was flooded from recent rains, and the dead limbs of mesquite rose above the heavily salted water like skeletal arms reaching for salvation.
The giant slough was soon left behind as Pitt banked the helicopter across the sand dunes that marched from the mountains to the edge of the Laguna Salada. Now the landscape took on the characteristics of a faded brown moon, more substance than color. The uneven, rocky terrain looked fearsome. Beautiful to the eye but deadly to the body that struggled to survive its horror during the blazing heat of summer.
"There's a blacktop road," announced Shannon, motioning downward.
"Highway Five," said Pitt. "It runs from San Felipe to Mexicali."
"Is this part of the Colorado Desert?" asked Rodgers.
"The desert north of the border is called that because of the Colorado River. In fact this is all part of the Sonoran Desert."
"Not very hospitable country. I wouldn't want to walk through it."
